COLOMBO – A string of blasts ripped through high-end hotels and churchesholding Easter services in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing at least 156people, including 35 foreigners.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the attacks as “cowardly” andsaid the government was working to “contain the situation”.
Images circulating on social media and local news stations showed extensivedamage at one of three churches targeted in the near simultaneous blasts onSunday morning.
Much of the church roof was blown out in the explosion, with roof tiles andsplintered wood littering the floor and pools of blood in between woundedworshippers.
The injured flooded into local hospitals, where officials reported hundredsof wounded were being admitted.
– Police chief warning –
The nature of the blasts was not immediately clear and there were noimmediate claims of responsibility.
But documents seen by AFP show that Sri Lanka’s police chief PujuthJayasundara issued an intelligence alert to top officers 10 days ago,warning that suicide bombers planned to hit “prominent churches”.
“A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (NationalThowheeth Jama’ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targetingprominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo,” thealert said.
The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked last year tothe vandalisation of Buddhist statues.
The first blast was reported at St Anthony’s Shrine, a well-known Catholicchurch in the capital Colombo.
A second deadly explosion was then confirmed at St Sebastian’s, a church inthe town of Negombo, north of the capital.
“A bomb attack to our church, please come and help if your family membersare there,” read a post in English on the church’s Facebook page.
Soon after, police confirmed that a third church in the town of Batticaloahad been hit, along with three high-end hotels in the capital.
Hospital sources said British, Dutch and American citizens were among thedead, with Britons and Japanese among those injured in the attacks. – AFP